Seattle skaters are about to have one less place to grind. Four
years ago, frustrated with the city’s lack of skateparks and city
leaders’ glacial response to community demand, neighbor-hood activist
Kate Martin spent over $15,000 to design and build a spot for her two
sons—then 11 and 13—to skate in their own front yard [see
“Skate Mom,” Amy Jenniges, June 2, 2005]. The thousand square feet of
cement ramps and rails that flow across the front yard of Martin’s
Greenwood home—with warped-but-clean lines reminiscent of a Frank
Gehry building—drew throngs of neighborhood kids whenever the
pavement was dry enough to ride. “People were stoked about it,” Martin
says. “It’s something good for the kids.”
But as Martin’s skatepark became a hit among neighborhood kids, it
also drew the attention of the city, since part of it was built on city
property without permits.
In October, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) sent
Martin a letter ordering her to demolish the portion of the park that
sits on the city-owned planting strip. Although 80 percent of Martin’s
skatepark is on her property, an 18-foot-long, 2-foot-high
half-moon-shaped concrete wall—which
Martin refers to as a
“clamshell”—covers most of the parking strip in front of her
house. The city wants the clamshell gone, but removing it, Martin says,
would compromise the safety of the skatepark. “The thing they want us
to take out… protects kids from launching into the street,” Martin
says. “It’s not like I can just take out the clamshell and call it
good.”
On May 15, the city attorney’s office filed suit against Martin and
her husband, Jose Chavez, slapping them with a $500-a-day fine
backdated to October 6. Over the months, the fine added up to over
$100,000. “It’s some pretty deep doo-doo we’re in right now,” Martin
says. “My thing is to cut my losses completely. I’m not there to make a
point. I don’t want to have to move out of my house.”
SDOT spokesman Rick Sheridan would not comment on Martin’s case.
However, he was willing to discuss the city’s recent changes to
planting-strip regulations, allowing neighbors to make certain
improvements without permits.
“Under the new rule changes, you are allowed to make improvements
like gardening without a need for permit or a fee,” Sheridan says. But
“if you were to make hardscape improvements”—like
a
skatepark—”you’d need a permit.”
However, SDOT seems less than stringent in its enforcement of the
rules Sheridan cites: Within a block of Martin’s home, two neighbors
have cemented basketball hoops into their planting strips, which is
illegal without
a $251 permit.
This isn’t the first time Martin and the city have been at odds.
Over the years, Martin has butted heads with SDOT over the city’s
Pedestrian Master Plan—Martin says she received lots of pushback
after asking the city to divert more funds to street improvements for
cyclists and pedestrians—and the lack of sidewalks in her
neighborhood. She’s close friends with Andrea Okomski, the wife of city
council member Nick Licata, who sued the city after her son, Josef
Robinson, was struck by a car and badly injured at an unmarked
crosswalk. Martin was widely viewed as a proxy for Okomski on the
Pedestrian Master Plan Advisory Group, where she was a staunch advocate
for increasing the number of marked crosswalks in the city.
Martin’s advocacy work hasn’t won her many
friends at the city,
and although she says she doesn’t know whether SDOT’s suit is meant as
retaliation, she’s resigning from the dozen or so community boards she
serves on, including the Greenwood Community Council, Piper’s Creek
Watershed Council, and the Pedestrian Master Plan group, in the hope
that the city will back down on its suit.
Martin hopes that the parks department can somehow take control of
the skatepark and make it the first of the city’s long-planned skate
dots—small skateable parks and art features around the city. The
likelihood that the parks department will assume responsibility for a
skatepark that’s mostly on private property seems remote, but several
local skating
advocates are going to bat for Martin.
“This use of space is the best way for us to get skateable elements
scattered through the city,” says Ryan Barth, president of the parks
department’s Skateboard Park Advisory Committee. “This is a model for
what the
city should be doing.”
But Martin is not expecting a last-minute reprieve. She’s already
gotten the permits she needs to demolish the park. “The fine’s still
going up at $500 a day,” she says. “I’m waiting on hearing from [the
parks department] and then I’ll send my husband out with a jackhammer,
and that’ll be that.” 
Un-BEEEE-LIEEEEEVVVV-able. Somehow this lady can’t get a $251 permit that would allow her skate park to remain in place? What’s our City bureaucracy come to?
Reminds me of the time the Parks Department wanted to chip out some neighborhood tilework because — horrors — a couple of the tiles depicted people enjoying a glass of wine.
Still to be fair, in politically correct Seattle, building on city property is a no-no. I wish that there were more parks like this one around Seattle when I was growing up. Anyway, my point is that any person would now look at the new “loop-hole” to build whatever they like, then start a legal mess.
Kate Martin deserves the fines she has racked-up over this and I hope she has to pay them.
I used to live a couple of blocks away from her house, and even though I totally support the skating community and the need for more skate parks, her lack of consideration for her neighbors and love of her role as “rebel mom” is pathetic. It’s a really cool idea but not if you have to live next to it, the lots in that area are pretty tight.
She relished playing politics when things went her way but not so much anymore. Maybe she will think a little more about her neighbors in the future.
If it’s city property, then they can get their asses out there and mow it.
SDOT wants to get tough on a few feet of driveway, when they gave away the public right-of-way in the Alki / Beach Drive sidewalk project. Take a look. A couple barking waterfront owners got the sidewalk diverted so they can have their private parking places in the PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY, with SDOT’s blessing!!! The property line runs right along the sides of the buildings. What the HELL is going on with SDOT??!!
maybe Kate can take some time off and teach her oldest son to stop spraypainting all over the town? He’s one of the worst offenders out there now, that’s all i’m sayin.
This is dumb. What a waste of time and money. SDOT needs to fuck off.
BostonTom, if it was such a hassle for you and the neighbors you claim to be speaking for here, then why didn’t you complain to SDOT before you moved? Why didn’t anyone? To date, there have been no complaints at all, and the positive comments would certainly outweigh the ones like yours if someone were to collect them. What have you done for Greenwood lately?
When asked about its decision to support SDOT’s ruling, the Mayor’s office said that intersecting traffic lines across the sidewalk are the reason why the clamshell needs to go, but don’t driveways already allow cars to intersect with pedestrians? Isn’t this at least as dangerous as a skateboard? Does the water department need to replace a main under the clamshell? Is there a broken gas line under it? Probably not, so what’s the real reason here? $251 for a permit and maybe a couple hundred extra dollars in fines should be enough to clear this up and move on to something way more important.
Planting strips are our city’s most under-utilized open space. Kudos to SDOT for its recent changes to planting-strip regulations, but this change needs to go further so that homeowners who want to become stewards of an adjacent little piece of Seattle don’t have to break the law in order to do it.
Why did she think it wise to pour concrete on land that wasn’t hers? Would you build a garage on a few feet of your neighbors plot and complain when they force you to tear it down? Does this woman think she is above the law? That she can steal land that isn’t hers? And why is she waiting months at $500 a day to rectify this situation? Am I supposed to be sympathetic to her? Can I build a shed on the planting strip in front of my house now? An office? Pave it and park my car there? Erect a cement wall for privacy or to reduce noise? Where does it end?
Are you fucking kidding me #9? When do YOU end?
She must have made mad someone in power really mad. It took the city four years to cite her for this infraction? Smells kind of fishy to me.
The fact that it took the city four years to come after Kate makes me think something fishy is going on. She must have made someone real angry.
The fact that it took the city four years to come after Kate makes me think something fishy is going on. She must have made someone real angry.
While I can appreciate her good intentions for the community, it is inappropriate for her to use it as a shelter to break the law. Bottom line is she built something on property that is not hers. I hope she has to pay the fines, all of them. It’s about time people are forced to realize that they can’t do whatever they want, they have to see that there are real consequences. I don’t feel bad for her, everyone knows you need permits to build something like that. She knew the city would say no, so she did it anyway and thought she could circumvent the rules and get away with it. She took her shot and lost. I agree that SDOT is a complete disaster, but she purposely tried to get around the system and good for the SDOT to not letting her get away with it.
I eat my own shit then shit it out then pretend i’m a skateboarder by making a shit covered skateboard at my little faggy meetings
If the “city-owned planting strip” is not the purview of the property owner and truly belongs to the city, do gardens and planter boxes in the planting strip also violate city law? Shouldn’t the city pay me for upkeep of that strip, since I mow and maintain mine regularly?
Additionally, it should be noted that it is NOT “illegal” for Kate to have placed the skate feature on the planting strip. Not paying the fee is what broke the law.
I’m glad there’s rebel moms out there. My friends back in time could have used even one parent so committed to reason. Practical approaches to solving easy teenager needs – one of many things this nation could use. This city, with it’s high level of education and wealthy patrons, should be a leader. We don’t need, especially in the psuedoburbs of 65th Street and northward, stringent city planning that allows only uniform planting strips. We need more Houses with the Orange Splott. Planting strips with character like the tile art just north of E John and 11th Ave E, or the odd Carousel art near N. 75th and Brooklyn.
Yet… I’m glad the city has codes to protect public property. I don’t want some fucker using their planting strip to erect some hateful anti-choice statue, for example. Or paving over green space to park their car on. I also would think that the skate groups would want to pitch in to pay the unpaid fees if they’ve been using Kate’s “park”.
So, initially, I’m torn. Kate should have designed her skate park better. The clamshell should have been made, at least, removable for city inspection purposes. The city shoudl have acted 4 years ago. All hindsight now.
The tiebreaker: the city hasn’t come through on the Skate plan. Citizens had to do something. (I’d like to think: Just as if the city didn’t provide police, we’d get a militia, a Q-patrol, something going to solve it until the city got their shit together and hired cops.
So,
Fail score: city 2, kate 1.
Backdating the fines? Now? That’s bureauBS.
The city has more important zoning issues to spend resources on, and much more likely sources of revenue than a small greenwood family on a small plot of land. Assign a current fee to allow her variance or whatever and be done with it.
The city is in dire financial straits: likely some division manager told some middlemanagementsuckup to ‘find a source for at least $100,000 so we look busy / like we’re doing something about the bad budget’ and they seized on this 4 year old complaint – a violation that likely, someone earlier, quite wisely, let slide as unimportant in the grand scheme.
I’m much rather see the 2 to 6 management jackwipes in city gov that it took to make this suit come alive lose their jobs, and realize the $100,000 budget benefit that way…
Kates a pain in the ass:
http://www.phinneywood.com/2009/06/05/fred-meye…;
Kate,
I’m a skater. And I’m all about getting Seattle to provide good skating areas. But when you start TAKING public property for your own purposes – and start trying to dictate the use of private property (Fred Meyer), then you become part of the problem, not part of the solution.
However well-meaning your intentions, you can’t socially engineer outside the boundaries of the Constitution. The ends NEVER justify the means. Start showing some respect to the rest of us.
The real crime isn’t the half-moon skate ramp. What Kate should be sued for is the god-awful puke yellow color she painted her house! It’s breath takingly awful. The house is a huge expanse of soul crushing banality expressed through a hue not often see in the knowable universe. I think the neighbors tolerate the skate ramps because it distracts from what is clearly an advertisement to a portal to the underworld. Seriously Kate, try another color. Something less goat-spleeny.
I may not agree with everything Kate has done or advocates. But she has done more that I have by taking a stand on what she thinks is good for the community. It is easy to take shots at her in this forum but if you really want to change things do what she has done and speak up.
The issue is what she has done in hardscape to her parking strip. It isn’t her house color. It isn’t her family.
Simply this is a case of her not getting the permit and then the city looking for a way to silence her. If they can do this to her they can do it to any community activist.
I agree with Ballardmom. I’m fond of the house color and her family. Just make her get the permit or make her take down the clamshell. The $100,000 fine is pure, unadulterated bullshit for being a “troublemaker”.
To help everyone understand. City ordinance can be changed to require the city to reimburse you for the maintenance you do to your planting strip. But then they’d have to increase your taxes in order to pay you. Don’t be dumb. City ordinance (ordinances written by the legislators elected by the people) require you to maintain your city owned sidewalk and planting strip. Don’t like this? Work to change it and be ready to pay for it in taxes.
If the city allows a skate park on a planting strip and a kid breaks her neck and sues the city who is liable? The city. Who pays? You do – the tax payer.
As for retaliation? No way. It doesn’t work like that. It probably took them 4 years because the city didn’t know about it right away and then they may have been sending her letters for a year getting her to do the right thing all the while spending your tax dollars in city staff time. Think about it. You should ask the city how much this issue has cost the tax payers.
How about a little back round on skate mom Kate. You know woodland skatepark, that cool new park over by the wood chip pile near the greenlake tennis courts? That spot was set aside for the skatepart 4 years ago. it was a done deal, then Kate and her band of rebel skate parents came and gummed up the works because they did not like the location. (never seen them skate there) So after several years of meetings where is the skatepark?? right smack in the middle of where the fuck it was going to be in the first place. What did our skate activist do for skateboarding…slow it down for a bunch of years.
You want the story again. Replace greenlake with seaskate. Land was donated for that park. It could have been done years ago.
That stupid abortion of a skatespot in her front yard is good for nothing. I hope they use it to bury her and Scott Shinn. The biggest skate activists this city has that do not even skate.
All these skate activists do is slow shit down.
#15: I thought this quote from Jay and Silent Bob was funny too:
“Once we get to Hollywood and find those Miramax fucks who are making that movie, we’re gonna make ’em eat our shit, then shit out our shit, then eat their shit which is made up of our shit that we made ’em eat.”
#17 & 21: Ditto on all that.
#19: Sometimes, it is both legitimate and necessary for skaters to build a skatepark on public property. Burnside and Marginal Way are excellent examples of this. The question here is if this same act of civil disobedience should extend to a parking strip.
#23: During the 1997 session, the legislature adopted SSB 5254 which amended the recreational user statute, RCW 4.24.210, to expand covered activities by adding skateboarding to the list of activities allowed on public and private property. This means that the cities will not be held responsible for injuries sustained by skateboarders or inline skaters at skateboard parks operated by the city as long as: (1) a fee is not charged for use of the skateboard park; and (2) conspicuous signs are posted to warn of any known dangerous, artificial, latent conditions. This legislation was effective on July 27, 1997.
#24: It’s irrelevant if a skatepark gets delayed or moved around before it gets built. It doesn’t even matter if the whole thing gets thrown away and redesigned either, because that’s just how the process works in this town. If you had participated in it, you would know this and wouldn’t need to whine about it on the SLOG. The Lower Woodland location still sucks, even though having a skatepark there is great. Things are looking better for SeaSk8 and I remain hopeful about that skatepark, am thankful for the skatedots at Ella Bailey Park and the new Ballard Corners park, and am also looking forward to the new skatespot at Dahl Playfield in a couple more months, as well as some skateparks in South and West Seattle as the Citywide Skatepark Plan is implemented. Although I will certainly be sampling these myself at some point, I personally prefer to skate at the Ballard Bowl (remember that one?) alone, so call me sometime if it’s important for us to skate together. Perhaps you will stoke me with your mad skills, dude.
All conspiracy theories aside, I still think the real issue here is that we live in an urban space that was designed and built almost exclusively for the automobile, and that’s just how it is. But if it’s OK to cut the curb for a driveway, then it should be OK to build something like a clamshell, and the permitting process should allow this to happen, within practical limits. ADA ramps, traffic islands and bicycle lanes are other examples of practical modifications to this basic transportation infrastructure. After 4 years in operation, it is clear that even a front yard skatepark like this one can be practical. What do we want our sidewalks and streets to look like in another 100 years? Skateboarding has always carried a “rebel” image so this story is really not that surprising. What will be surprising is all the various ways that parking strips can be used to create a move livable Seattle.
Scott, seriously shut the fuck up and go kill yourself for killing seattles skateboard community.
People.. these negative comments towards Kate and her little henchman only serve to further inflate their twisted egos while convincing them that their parasitic attachment to skateboarding is actually necessary.
Scott, there’s a reason you skate Ballard alone.
Kate, it sounds to me like you willfully violated a city ordinance and then irritated those who enforce it. Were you expecting an award?
Kate and her family don’t deserve the fines racked up by the city for their inefficiencies and I don’t believe SDOT is a group of intelligent educated folks. All these new townhomes that line our main streets in Ballard and Greenwood have the most hideous parking strips with over grown weeds and grasses that not one single resident is taking care of. Look at 8th Avenue and Greenwood South of 65th. What a bunch of crap. Look at 1st Ave. south of N. 78th there is concrete covered parking strips lining the street with nothing but weeds growing there. How lovely. In front of her beautiful yellow colored house she has always kept the parking strip nice and clean and displayed a talent for design and a knack for bringing people together. Thanks for tearing down one good thing that I am so proud of in my neighborhood. And lay off criticizing the kids this is an adult issue so act like one.
I had never lived in such a bureaucratic nightmare of a city until I moved to Seattle. Now I live a ways South, where we vote on something, and it gets accomplished. Those of you that agree that Kate should have to pay this $100,000 fine should just move back to California where you came from. You’re sure to jump all over a citizen for taking action and getting something done. But what happens when your city continuously ignores your vote? nothing….
Another case of Stupid White People trying to find ways to ‘get oppressed’ because, like, you know, like, being rich and white and unoppressed is sooooo boring.
“love of her role as “rebel mom” is pathetic. “
A rebel in a $1million dollar home. Must be tough being so oppressed.